MASHANTUCKET, Conn. — On the edge of a vast casino, David Schreiber played video poker at a frenetic pace — fast enough to place almost 50 bets a minute. Beat, pause, beat-beat, pause. Over and over again.
An admitted compulsive gambler, Schreiber was not supposed to be here on the gambling floor at Foxwoods Resort Casino. Three years ago, distraught over his gambling losses, he asked the Indian-owned casino to ban him for life, a desperate step he hoped would save him from himself.
Foxwoods, like most casinos, keeps a “voluntary self-exclusion” list of compulsive gamblers who sign an agreement that they would be denied entry or ejected from the premises, and denied rights to winnings. Casinos, responding to critics, point to the program as evidence that they are responsible institutions.
But in Schreiber’s case, at least, neither part of the equation has worked: He keeps gambling and, he says, Foxwoods does not stop him.
“I’ve been back to Foxwoods a hundred times since I got on the list,” Schreiber, 59, of Danielson, Conn., said after a betting session on the Game King poker machine. “They don’t enforce it. It’s a joke.”
Schreiber said he has been detected only once, when he won a $1,250 jackpot, large enough to trigger the requirement that he deposit a portion of his winnings into a tax withholding account. As it turned out, he didn’t get to keep a cent, he said.
“They took me to an office and wouldn’t let me keep the money,” he said. “After that, they said they were going to keep a real close eye on me. But they didn’t.”
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